Prediction of compressive strength of brick columns confined with FRP, FRCM, and SRG system using GEP and ANN methods

This study assesses the strength capacity of brick columns under various confinement materials, including fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP), fiber-reinforced cementitious matrix (FRCM), and steel-reinforced grout (SRG) using gene expression programming (GEP) and artificial neural networks (ANN) models. To achieve this, a comprehensive database of masonry column test results from existing scientific literature is compiled. The models' performance is evaluated using statistical errors like the coefficient of linear correlation (R2), mean absolute error (MAE), mean square error (MSE), and root mean square error (RMSE). Additionally, sensitivity analysis is carried out to assess the significance of individual parameters in the models. The findings reveal that ANN predictions closely match empirical data, demonstrating a strong correlation coefficient of 0.95. The accuracy of the ANN approach is reasonably high, with only 26% of the predicted values deviating by more than 20% from the actual data. Based on the statistical analyses, the correlation coefficient between the actual and estimated data was 0.88, for GEP method. Also, the GEP model yields outcomes, with roughly 43% of the predicted values differing by 20-50% from the actual data. In a comparison of the two models, the ANN model outperforms the GEP model, displaying a 40% reduction in error when estimating the compressive strength of masonry columns. The data estimated by the GEP were sparser than those estimated by the ANN. Nevertheless, the GEP model still maintains an acceptable correlation coefficient and error rate, making it a viable choice for precise predictions. It offers a user-friendly formula and meets the needs of both customers and builders.